Psyonix's Nosgoth cancelled

"Its audience hasn't grown enough to sustain ongoing operations"

Square Enix and Psyonix have announced that they're ceasing development of Nosgoth, a free-to-play spin-off of Legacy Of Kain. Nosgoth's community manager relayed the decision and its consequences for players in a forum post today.

"It is with a heavy heart and an immense sense of sadness that we must announce the end of Nosgoth's development. Servers will continue to run until 31st May 2016, during which time you will be able to play the game as normal. After that date, Nosgoth will be taken offline for the last time," said the post.

"This was not an easy decision to come to. It has been a pleasure to build this game with your help, but ultimately its audience hasn't grown enough to sustain ongoing operations."

An FAQ confirmed that any in-game purchases made after March 1, 2016 would be automatically refunded. In-game Runestones are no longer available for purchase.

"Any future Legacy of Kain project will be considered independently of Nosgoth and on the merits of the proposals alone," the FAQ added.

Nosogth was announced in 2013 and the open beta began in January 2015.

The news has been a shock to many players. One of the game's designers, Jacob Mott, seemed positive about the development process in an interview with Gamereactor just last month.

"We've had a lot of players around from the very start who've definitely enjoyed it, and they've seen the game have a big evolution from originally having only three maps, two or three classes for each side, and almost doubling that into what we're currently at, with Beastmaster around the corner," he said.

"We're especially excited for the game to come out of early access when we do get around to that - we're hoping to get a nice push of new players to get in here and get these new fresh perspectives on how the game is feeling for newer players."

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Ah well. They should have gotten the rights to do a remake of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and THAT would have gotten a new audience for the series as well as more player interest in Nosgoth... but more as a solo player game with an optional online experience because it's always been best as a single player experience.

This may be another example of the problem that multiplayer-only games are facing. If you don't add a story mode or some short of single-player fraction of the game, you will eventually begin to see a decline on users or how the number stalls. Happened with Evolve and Titanfall, for example: Both great games for which the lack of a campaign mode or similar single player gameplay in the end played against them. We are also beginning to read some complains online regarding Street Fighter V's lack of offline only modes.